Hello and welcome to a very special episode 36 of Hidden Wings and bloodlust, a podcast about lady bird's and ladybugs around the world. I'm your host, Rachel. Today we're going to be talking about lady bird's in Palestine. My guest today are Mohammad Najjar genre and Marcin comes here, Mohammed is the museum manager and an environmental biologist at the Palestine Museum of Natural History at the Palestine Institute for biodiversity and sustainability at the University of Bethlehem.
Marcin is the founder and director of the museum and has written four books most recent being sharing the land of Calaan on the Israeli occupation and the possibility of coexistence within the region as well as over 140 scientific articles and a range of topics. After seeing the awful scenes of devastation and violence in Gaza Jerusalem and other parts of Palestine and Israel are reached out to them. After viewing a study, they co authored on lady birds found in the West Bank.
Palestine is an area that is very rich in biodiversity and indeed 35 different species of ladybird were found in the study. At the start of the interview, Mohamed Jabarah refers to a ladybird called This pair of coffee which was originally introduced to Palestine and Israel but was unable to be found in the subsequent Israeli research until it was rediscovered in their study of the West Bank, there's also a huge variety of different birds, bats, amphibians and a host of other species.
So here is my interview with Mohamed and Marcin. You might not agree with some of the answers, but their voices need to be heard and that's what I'm asking you to do today. Unfortunately there were some issues with the sound, especially at the beginning. So apologies in advance. Hope you enjoy the interview if you have a for your salvation. Ladybugs. Ladybugs, Ladybugs. What are you both working on currently For me?
I'm working now in palestrina Museum of Natural History as a museum, as a museum manager and dr month. And dr martin is the director of the Pakistan Institute for biodiversity and sustainability and Pakistan Museum of Natural History. He's the co founder of the museum and attitude What we are working on we have about 10 projects and focusing on research, conservation and education but various suspects nature and the Palestinian environment. There's lists on our website.
You can see more about what we do from annual report and so forth. So how did you both get involved in research on conservation and wildlife? So how did we get research conservation on wildlife? Well for me personally was when my uncle used to take me with him in the field when I was a child got me interested in nature and that's how I got involved in the beginning childhood and I did my better Masters and PhD in biology and they say the rest is history Mohammed.
You want to add your side for me from my side I studied in the agriculture. So yeah uh because I I love the natural things and using natural things. So I like to you at work on the lady beaten and I decided to start working on my master's thesis to study more about the lady beetles. But when I start to work to volunteer in the museum here in the beginning I know more about how to know about the lady beetles. That first I should the study the lady beetles know about the lady beetles in Palestine.
So for that I took my my master thesis about it. Yeah. The study of the lady details of the West Bank. Oh wow. Yeah. So because because I read that article and there were I think 35 you found 35 different species. Fantastic. Yeah. Um So um have I always ask everyone that comes on the show this question. Have you seen any lady birds beetles? Lady beetles? Have you seen any recently? some of them are seven spotted lady beetle.
That is he said recently because of the weather now and drive with and try with. Yeah. Okay. And which one is that the most common ladybird in in Palestine? Or is there another one that's more common? The seven spotted lady b lady beetle is the most common in in Palestine. And that is in our study. And also everyone near uh from our community, they think the seven spotted lady beetle and most of the people they know this species. Yes, for the the surprising thing about the lady beetles.
most of the people they know about just the seven spotted lady beetle which is the common one and they said when we are heads to it and we're growing with while we're seeing this insect around and we didn't know at all that or we didn't imagine that we will find through this study. 35 species and just part of the of the West Bank. That was a surprising thing of all the species found. Especially that no one studied the lady beetles in the West Bank of Palestine.
Before this is the first study of the lady beetles. It was the first study, wow, that's fantastic. And um yeah because when I was reading when I was reading the study I read that there was one lady beetle there that was previously thought to be to not be found anymore in Palestine or to be to have been extinct. But I think you found it didn't you? Yeah that one they studied in in Israel but they didn't study the West Bank and the gas is stripped. So they in Israel they they didn't find it again.
But our study we find it that it's here in the West Bank. That's fantastic. So what about in um in Gaza? Because I know when I was when I was researching this episode I found that um not very many studies of wildlife have actually been done in Gaza in general. Like I know I did read one by I think fattah abou I think his name is and he was saying that he was talking about birds and things.
But I have fair actually been many studies of invertebrates and things like that in the in Gaza or is it mostly just in the, in the West Bank? Yeah, I mean there's some work we still have of course a long way to go to do some more work, but oh no, everything, everything here has not just about everything we look at needs more research.
I noticed when I was doing research on the episode that a lot of the, the nature reserves in, I think the west in the West Bank Palestinians don't actually have any access to because of the Israeli occupation. And I just wondered like does that um would you like to say, would either of you want to say something about that?
Yeah, I mean it's not just the occupation we have here, we have a settler colonial system that's intended and destroying our people and destroying nature and everything else because that's what settler colonialists do, whether in north America, The Europeans came and killed two million Buffalos or whether one in South Africa or in and here when Zionist colonization started the idea to reshape the country to their image of what needs to be,
which means basically they conduct a war on nature and people because nature people, native indigenous people have lived in relative harmony with nature for thousands of years. And for them this is not what they want? They don't want continuation of the native people.
Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, because I I read the um a lot of the I know that the the Palestinian authorities didn't have, I read one article which said that like even to carry out like maintenance of the nature reserves, they couldn't do that because of the settlers and stuff. Yeah. Most of the open areas are under control of the state.
Israel wanted The remaining Palestinians into Ghettos like the get Gaza or the Ghetto Bethlehem etc. Built up areas already built up area from before 1967, Israel didn't want the Palestinians to spread out or expand or anything like that.
So they squeezed the Palestinians surrounded us with walls barriers and preventing us from doing anything with our nature that's also part and parcel of settler colonialism and mars in like in one of the articles I read that you wrote, you described the after effects of the Israeli occupation as a environmental naqba.
And for anyone that's listening that doesn't know the nakBA was like when the when when the state of Israel was established, the Palestinians were expelled from the land that's now that's now part of the state. And I just wanted to ask you like um have like first of all was that um have I gave given an accurate summary and also was why like what were some of the effects on the environment? Like why was it so bad?
Let me just give you a few very quick examples because of the time we, in the first project that the Zionist established in Palestine, it was uh removing the people, removing the people in the hula wetland areas in the north and draining the wetlands. This is one of their major quote unquote achievements which resulted in destruction 119 species.
The second major project that they did was the diversion of the water of the Jordan valley from Lake Tiberias to the west through what they call the Israel National water carrier and that dried up the Jordan valley, destroy the agriculture and destroyed nature also in the Jordan valley. Uh and now they are doing another mega project which is to transfer water from the Red Sea desalinated and dumped asla gin, the dead sea, which is a lake in the Jordan valley.
And um and then of course they put their, they developed industries that are highly polluting like arms industries, electronics industries, etcetera. And they put those right next to Palestinian areas or next to nature areas and that destroyed habitats. That's you know the 4th 1.
And then the 5th 1 is like when they destroyed the Palestinian villages and towns and destroy all the trees around them, diversity of trees like both domestic and wild trees, domestic trees like olives and almonds and figs and so on and wild like sarabande and orcs and so on. They destroyed all these trees and replaced them with with basically uniform culture of european point and I could go on and on about the impact of colonialism, but it's devastating.
Um There's also I think in um certainly like in the media here, there's been a lot of coverage about how something like 91% of the water in the West Bank goes towards Israeli settlements. And I just wondered like how does it affect? I don't know if either of you want to say like how how does that affect the environment currently? Well, I mean yes, Israel took our water stole our water I should say.
Yeah, right from under our feet, basically they prevent Palestinians from using our water resources and use the water for their own usage. But also primarily so they can deny access to Palestinian of Palestinians to water because they eventually want to transform this country from multi ethnic, multi religious, even multicultural society to make it in the state of Israel.
And since the Palestinians are not jewish, so to speak, they are denied basic rights like the right to their natural resources. What that means in practical terms that Palestinians get less water, but the world health organization says is good for healthy living and the Israelis get 678, sometimes nine or 10 more at times water than the Palestinians get in depending on the area.
Um That's that's the reality of the denial so that the Palestinian economy and livelihood suffers so that they can't live here and they eventually leave. Yeah. And also like um I read that the wall that was that was built. I read one article that said that it was interfering with interfering with the environment too. And I wanted if either of you want to say something about that. Yeah. I mean there is just for the sake of the audience, you need to know there's a segregation wallets, apartheid.
The wall is weaves through the West Bank. Its intention is not related to security as I like to use propaganda to claim. It has to do with security doesn't have anything to do with security. There are it really is on both sides of the world. There are Palestinians on both sides of the world. The only purpose of the world is to hinder Palestinian economic development and to steal our land and natural resources.
So preventing farmers from getting to their fields with equipment etcetera and eventually confiscating those fields. This is the whole purpose of the world. The wall is actually two or three times higher than the Berlin wall and about five times longer than the Berlin wall was. And um obviously this has environmental impact on the local fauna and flora I would say even for example on the floor aspect by re routing water passageways and so forth.
It has a direct impact on the floor on the phone of course. And large land mammals like gazelles etcetera. Wolves cannot cross easily so their habitats are disrupted and and they end up suffering. Yeah that's that's yeah I mean I read I read I think an article that it might it might have been you it might have been someone else I wrote about that was really really terrible and yeah like I mean there's nothing and yeah that's awful.
Um Something that we've got a bit of a problem with in the U. K. Is like um there's a lot of I suppose like environmental degradation that happens because of agriculture and like for example like the number of pesticides that you get used and like sometimes even in parks that are managed for conservation they end up using pesticides and things. Like is there a similar issue in Palestine or in general The farmers they like the easy way to manage the best and disease on the on the plans.
So you have to use the best decides to managing the affairs the scale insects and uh those things on the planned to get more money from the their production. But recently the because of the our farmers mostly the the whole family is working on the agriculture like the and the men and their uh sons.
They're working together in the farms and there are many spreading of cancers and uh and uh farmers families so for that farmers now they were able to uh any idea or anything about using the lady beetles or the natural enemy for attacking the insects and the based on the plans because they think now how much they affected from the using of the pesticide? Sorry.
Um so are you saying that now there's more awareness of in here just trying to make people aware and reduce using pesticides, biological, football's etcetera, better methods, etcetera. Part of it is this new liberal colonialism that's spreading around the world, of course, and the attitude humanism and industrialized agriculture, we are against that. And we want to go back to what indigenous people have done all those which is living harmony with nature without much damage to the environment.
Like my grandfather lived without producing anything called garbage or stuff. That's what we want people to go back to. And do you think there's more of an awareness now among um Palestinians that that's really good. And in terms of the Palestinian authorities, do they have any sort of policies on on wildlife or or anything like that? Do they, are they able to like put anything in place? Well, I mean, Palestine as you know, is occupied.
So the nascent interim, it was supposed to be interim, Palestinian authority was to prepare and grow into statehood basically. Eventually. So they started to act like a state and planets use of natural resources Plan even set up in 1999, for example, Palestinian biodiversity strategy, an action plan for the state. and they have 1999 also just four or five years after they were established, they set up a Palestinian environmental law and so forth.
Were now, by the way, revising both, they tasked us as a Palestine institute for biodiversity and sustainability with the task of looking at these things like the biodiversity strategies and see if we can update them. Because the first strategies they were done assuming we will get statehood right away or soon as the problems we talked about earlier, we don't have much control of our natural resources because the colonizers occupiers still control them.
So it's hard to plan, you know or try to manage even aspects of it. We can only do certain things and we are doing the best we can do under very very difficult circumstances, very impossible circumstances.
Yeah, I mean what you said just now about the the in the Israeli settlements, the planting like european pine trees and like species that are not supposed to be there and that we like, we know that everywhere in the world where this has been done, it never leads to a good outcome at all for like either people or like the natural environment.
Mhm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um Also wondered um so I mean in the UK um lady birds are really quite known as being quite beneficial, you see them on a lot of even like sort of fashion items and things and they're seen as a sort of sign of good luck and I just wondered how are how they have seen in Palestinian culture.
Are there like songs and things like that or did you want to uh, as I told you the seven spotted lady beetle is the most common most of the people and like us when we were kids, we were putting content on our fingers and saying, uh, territory um, M. R. M. R. Or flying flying uh, my lady bits fly flight. You have very dress. So there are kids, they like a lot uh, to see it when supplying from their hands. That's really nice.
Yeah, because I think, yeah, in the UK we've got a song um, something like ladybird, ladybird fly away home and you put it on your finger and it wait where you wait for it to fly. Yeah, we have to remember if I may add to that that this was the land part of the fertile crescent for humans developed agriculture one from hunter gatherers to agricultural community. So we are our proverbs and everything is deeply connected to nature. Even on Netanyahu was bombing Gaza he said is flowering Gaza.
You know we use like in terms of agricultural terms and other terms to refer to these things because our heritages agricultural natural connect.
Yeah, I know I've read like before like in the media when it's talking about like there the fact that there's a lot of olive, as you said, there's a lot of olive trees in Palestine and figs and almonds and things that are growing and they're all growing naturally and yeah, so I wondered as well like how um how does the museum educate people about wildlife and biodiversity?
Like what kind of what kind of things do you do you do do you like are you able to go into schools or um or anything like that? And of course what happened during the COVID-19? We had some problems in terms of either going to school because most of them were closed orange school busses coming here.
But our normal routine outside of of the pandemic when we say was that we create an environment here at the museum that allows the mind to grow in the same way we create an environment that allows the plants to grow and clinical garden, we create an environment in which minds grow and that's basically what we are doing through various mechanisms, educational modules, workshops, you know, having people work with their hands.
You know we we can't the chinese saying that you know I hear and I forget I see and I remember I do and I understand so it people to do things with their hands which makes them understand more and yeah, because I know when when the lockdown here was happening um basically the only thing that we were allowed to do was just like was was to go for walks and stuff in the, in the countryside. And I think it's just hugely helpful for mental health, especially under the it must be hugely helpful.
Especially under the current situation to have a space like that where people can go. Absolutely. It's like an oasis in the middle of this mayhem. More people can come. And even yesterday we had a group of Children, we were, you know, giving them kind of using psycho drama if you want to help them because Children here are subjected to a lot of pressure, occupation, colonization, bombings, etcetera. So, so this, this natural area ah, produces a very safe environment for the people.
Yeah, that's that's really that's really good. It's just it's it's so helpful to get out in nature and just get away from get away from everything. Yeah. Yeah. So what can people from outside Palestine who are listening, what can people do to support your work? Well, people can volunteer come join us, volunteers, uh, in person here or they can do it that they are for example, they can certainly donate. We have tax deductible in most countries.
They can help us technically connect us with people who can help us technically advise us or provide support from scientific or nonscientific like media work that said there are many ways they can go on our website and has, which has a lot more information along those lines. Our website. Okay, that's good because I was just about to ask how they can.
Are you active on any of the social media or just the website also on facebook we have facebook page, Palestine Institute burst and sustainability, but again on our, what page I can find all the information. So is there anything else you want to talk about today or No, I I think people should be aware that all of this stuff working together in joint struggle for sustainability, humans and nature around the globe is areas that are connected.
All our struggles wherever we are are connected basically wasn't for people to get involved and it's also a lot of fun and a lot of enjoyment and when I sit and do some planting of seeds like I'm about to go do now and other things that's to me like therapy from this mad world that's been on the road of catastrophe neck bus I call it climate change and other colonialism,
neo liberal attitudes except we need people to be involved and once they get involved they will find hundreds of ways that they can act to make this a better world for everybody. What seeds are you going to plant? Oh no, there's a queue conversions and bean sprouts that are still there and I need to go plant them. Amazing. Oh wow. Um what about um what about you, Mohammed, is there anything that you wanted to um to talk about meeting and your interests above the lady beetles in Palestine.
No, thank you. No, thank you. Thank you for coming on. Like, I I was really like, I was really I was actually, like, really nervous like to speak. I was really nervous to speak to you because, you know, because especially because, like, you know, marzen, like, you're the director of the museum and I I if I'm honest, I wasn't even expecting a reply. Thank you. No, thank you. Thank you both so much for coming on and talking to me.
And I really hope that the situation in Palestine gets it gets better very soon. Hi, thank you. Bye bye. Thank you so much. Bye bye.